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Ontario New Democrats

Tuesday November 17, 2014

November 17, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

Tuesday November 17, 2014Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday November 17, 2014

Andrea Horwath learns the lessons she unlearned

Andrea Horwath now has a second chance to lead Ontario’s third-place party.

New Democrats are sticking with their leader largely because they’re stuck with her: With no obvious understudy ready to step in, delegates voted to forgive her forgettable 2014 campaign performance.

On judgment day, Saturday, Horwath atoned for her electoral sins. She vowed to learn the lessons of a campaign that sent the party back into opposition obscurity.

In a formal leadership review, delegates returned their verdict: 76.9 per cent voted in favour of Horwath keeping her job — slightly above the 76.4 per cent she won in the last convention in 2012, and well above the traditional benchmark of 66 per cent that spells trouble. That means Horwath will survive — if not quite thrive — to run again another day.

In the months since the June 12 election, NDP activists had complained bitterly about a campaign that cost them three crucial Toronto seats — and, importantly, the balance of power in a minority legislature. That defeat deprived New Democrats of the leverage they’d held since 2011 to push a progressive agenda upon the Liberals.

The bigger loss, however, was the sense that Horwath had lost her way — and her progressive purpose. She had ceded the NDP’s traditional vision to Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne, who emerged as the more persuasive progressive voice in the campaign.

The unprecedented role reversal left voters perplexed: Why elect New Democrats to be keepers of the legislature’s conscience if Horwath had already ceded it? If Wynne was cheerfully campaigning for pension improvements and wage hikes for the working poor, while Horwath was publicly opposing an Ontario pension plan and playing politics with low-wage workers, why vote NDP? (Source: Toronto Star)

 

Posted in: Ontario Tagged: Andrea Horwath, leadership, NDP, Ontario, Ontario New Democrats

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

May 28, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

Wednesday, May 28, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Andrea Horwath campaign leaves prominent NDP supporters ‘deeply distressed’

For SaleA group of 34 high-profile Ontario NDP supporters say they’re “deeply distressed” by the direction party leader Andrea Horwath has taken in the election campaign and are seriously considering not voting for the party.

In a letter to Horwath obtained by Evan Solomon for CBC’s Power & Politics, the group of longtime supporters, including Michele Landsberg (columnist and wife of former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis) and former federal candidate Winnie Ng, warn she may lose their support “and the support of thousands of others.” The email was dated May 23.

“From what we can see you are running to the right of the Liberals in an attempt to win Conservative votes,” the letter reads.

“It is not clear whether you have given up on progressive voters or you are taking them for granted.”

The letter goes on to say the NDP has risked the election of “the most right-wing and vicious leader of the PCs since Mike Harris,” referring to Tim Hudak, and that the proposed Liberal budget was the most progressive in recent Ontario history.

The warning comes a day after the NDP platform was released and during a campaign where Horwath’s decision to force the election has been criticized by NDP insiders such as Gerry Caplan, along with Liberals.

Long-time activist Judy Rebick is one of the NDP supporters who signed the letter.

 

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“We just don’t get it,” she said. “Where’s the NDP? Where is the party that we all supported?

“They seem to be running on a kind of right-wing populism, not at all on party policy, or in any way talking about social justice or democracy.”

The NDP issued a statement in response to the letter later Friday night.

“Progressives cannot turn a blind eye to corruption because it weakens the very foundations of our democracy. We need to renew democracy by guaranteeing transparency and accountability. Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” said NDP campaign co-chair Gilles Bisson.

“The support our leader is getting from people has never been warmer, our ranks never been stronger. We’re proud to stand for raising the minimum wage, increasing childcare spaces, lowering tuition, and supporting caregivers.”

In a phone interview, Bisson said some of the people who signed the letter are not real NDPers and that it is a Liberal attempt to take attention from their party’s scandals. (Source: CBC News)

 

Posted in: Ontario Tagged: Editorial Cartoon, NDP, Ontario, Ontario New Democrats, print sale, stalwarts, waffle

Saturday, May 24, 2014

May 24, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

Saturday, May 24, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, May 24, 2014

Ontario NDP focus on ‘fundamentals’ in party platform

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath has released a campaign platform that includes promises to raise corporate tax rates and cut auto insurance rates in the first year of an NDP mandate.

The platform features a mix of new and previously announced measures, with an emphasis on “fundamentals for families,” in a bid to woo voters ahead of the June 12 provincial election.

In announcing a plan heavy on pocketbook issues, Horwath assailed the Liberals for wasting taxpayer’s dollars in scandals such as the gas-plant fiasco.

“You deserve a government that makes sense, that respects your tax dollars and invests them in your priorities,” she said. “That’s what the New Democrats are offering.”

But the platform also includes a promise to freeze tuition fees and a plan to eliminate interest on student loans.

“It is not acceptable that people finish their post-secondary studies and have debts the size of mortgages,” Horwath said. “We are going to get this under control.”

The NDP also want to forgive up to $20,000 a year of student debt for doctors who agree to work in under-serviced areas.

One notable omission from the NDP platform was a made-in-Ontario pension plan, which the Liberals are promising.

Horwath said Thursday her party supports the idea in principle but said she wants to see what happens in the 2015 federal election before committing provincial dollars to it.

“We may actually get a federal government that will take pension plans seriously,” said Horwath. “We are the party that first began to talk about pension security for Ontarians.” (Source: CBC News)

 

Posted in: Ontario Tagged: Andrea Horwath, Editorial Cartoon, Election2014, Kathleen Wynne, NDP, Ontario, Ontario New Democrats, platform

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This website contains satirical commentaries of current events going back several decades. Some readers may not share this sense of humour nor the opinions expressed by the artist. To understand editorial cartoons it is important to understand their effectiveness as a counterweight to power. It is presumed readers approach satire with a broad minded foundation and healthy knowledge of objective facts of the subjects depicted.

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